1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for making a support base plate for an artificial satellite, designed to be mounted on a dispenser platform for a plurality of such satellites, the platform forming part of a launch vehicle for placing said satellites in terrestrial orbit. The invention relates more particularly to a method of the above kind applied to base plates disposed in a ring on the dispensing platform, each base plate having a cylindrical wall comprising curved surface elements and substantially plane surface elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
French patent application No 00 02251 filed Feb. 23, 2000 by the applicant, whose title translates as xe2x80x9cMethod of launching a plurality of artificial satellites mounted on the same launch vehicle and device for implementing the methodxe2x80x9d, discloses a method of launching a cluster of satellites designed to form part of a constellation of satellites for communication of digital data, voice or video information, or even multimedia information, for example. The satellites are mounted in a ring around the longitudinal axis of the launch vehicle, on a platform forming part of a dispensing structure. The base of each satellite is fixed temporarily to a trapezoidal base plate whose shape generally conforms to that of the section of the satellite. This shape is chosen because it is easily inscribed within a circular ring element and maximizes the surface area of the section of the satellite and therefore its volume.
In the French patent application previously cited, the base plates are provided with means for tipping them to deploy the xe2x80x9cdenesting conesxe2x80x9d of the satellites before releasing them, to eliminate any risk of collision between the released satellites without requiring sophisticated, and therefore costly, attitude control of the satellites.
French patent application No 2 735 099 describes a tilting adapter device for dispensing a plurality of payloads on the same launch vehicle, suitable for use as the base plate described above.
Clearly the shape of each base plate depends on the space that is allocated to it on the platform which receives it and therefore on the angle subtended by the circular ring element that it occupies on that surface. This angle is a function of the number of satellites installed on the platform, which number can vary from one launch to another.
Clearly it is therefore necessary to manufacture base plates whose shape is a function of this number, among other things. The manufacture and storage of a wide variety of such base plates, often referred to as xe2x80x9cpayload adaptersxe2x80x9d, in order to obtain base plates suitable for launching different numbers of satellites, is a long and costly process that does not satisfy current requirements in terms of satellite constellation launches, demanding at one and the same time an increased speed of adaptation of the necessary hardware and a reduction in launch costs.
One object of the present invention is precisely to provide a method of making support base plates for artificial satellites satisfying both these constraints simultaneously.
The above object of the invention, and others that will become apparent on reading the following description, are met by a method of making a supporting base plate of an artificial satellite, designed to be mounted on a platform for dispensing a plurality of such satellites forming part of a launch vehicle for placing said satellites in terrestrial orbit, the various base plates being disposed in a ring on said dispensing platform, each base plate having a cylindrical wall including curved surface elements and substantially plane surface elements, which method is characterized in that modular wall elements with a curved surface and wall elements with a plane surface are disposed in accordance with a predetermined base plate geometry and said elements are assembled at their adjacent edges to form said cylindrical wall of said base plate.
As described in more detail later, by employing modular elements that can be used in diverse base plate configurations, the above method rationalizes the manufacture of base plates with varied shapes, i.e. reduces the implementation time and cost thereof.
According to other features of the present invention, before disposing said curved surface modular wall elements in accordance with a predetermined base plate geometry, said modular wall elements are trimmed to adapt them to said geometry. Said modular wall elements can be portions of circular cylinders. The base plate geometry is chosen from a plurality of such geometries that can be inscribed within a circular ring element as a function of the geometry and the number of satellites to be mounted on the dispensing structure.